Gracie (3-0) announced his signing with Bellator last month and will be competing for the first time in seven years. He last fought at DREAM 14 in 2010 where he beat Kazushi Sakuraba by unanimous decision. His other two wins are first-round armbars over Alavutdin Gadzhiyev in 2008 and Katsuyori Shibata in 2007. He is also the founder of Metamoris.

Kato (7-2) is coming off of back-to-back first-round TKO wins over AJ Matthews and Yuta Watanabe. Prior to that, he suffered a knockout loss to Melvin Manhoef at Bellator 146. He is best known for scoring two highlight-reel knockouts over renowned kickboxer Joe Schilling in both an MMA and a kickboxing bout.

Bellator 170 takes place on January 21 at The Forum in Los Angeles and will be headlined by Tito Ortiz vs Chael Sonnen.

Jamal Khayat is a writer for RoughCopy MMA. He began his training in combat sports in 2009 and has competed as an amateur in both MMA and boxing. He is currently pursuing a B.S. degree in Physics at the University of Central Florida.